Solar Probe Plus: A NASA Mission to Touch the Sun

LAUNCH
MAY 21, 2015

VENUS FLYBY #1
JULY 19, 2015

VENUS FLYBY #2
OCTOBER 11, 2016

VENUS FLYBY #3
APRIL 26, 2017

VENUS FLYBY #4
DECEMBER 7, 2017

VENUS FLYBY #5
AUGUST 1, 2018

VENUS FLYBY #6
JUNE 5, 2020

VENUS FLYBY #7
AUGUST 22, 2021

FIRST CLOSE APPROACH
OCTOBER 10, 2021

The First Mission to the Nearest Star
Solar Probe Plus will be a historic mission, flying into the Sun's atmosphere (or corona), for the first time. Coming closer to the Sun than any previous spacecraft, Solar Probe Plus will employ a combination of in situ measurements and imaging to achieve the mission's primary scientific goal: to understand how the Sun's corona is heated and how the solar wind is accelerated. Solar Probe Plus will revolutionize our knowledge of the physics of the origin and evolution of the solar wind.

WHAT'S HOT?

August 13, 2009
Solar Probe Shield Testers Take the Heat

When Solar Probe Plus soars through the Sun’s atmosphere —facing temperatures 20 times higher than the hottest summer days on Earth—a thin carbon-foam shield will be all that separates the spacecraft from fiery obliteration. That’s why testing and perfecting the probe’s Thermal Protection System tops the list of mission design priorities.
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April 3, 2009
Solar Probe Makes the Grade

In a recent assessment of NASA’s heliophysics missions, the Space Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council gave an “A” grade to Solar Probe Plus. +Read More

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SOLAR PROBINGS

At closest approach, Solar Probe Plus will be hurtling around the Sun at approximately 450,000 miles per hour! That's fast enough to get from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., in one second.
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KEY RESOURCES

Solar Probe Plus Fact Sheet
April 2009

Solar Probe Plus Mission Engineering Study Report
March 2008

Solar Probe Plus Report of the Science and Technology Definition Team
July 2008

Feasible Mission Designs for Solar Probe Plus to Launch in 2015, 2016, 2017, or 2018
November 2008